Night Science

Latest Episodes:

38 | Yukiko Yamashita, the queen of analogies Jul 03, 2023

Show notes

Yukiko Yamashita is a biology professor at MIT and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Yukiko’s research is amazingly broad, perhaps because she often only realizes at the end of a project which question she was asking by what she had been doing, as she explains in this episode. She likens research to solving 5000-piece jigsaw puzzles – not one at a time, but with the pieces from hundreds of puzzles all dumped together. So that while we put the pieces together, we have to be always watching ourselves: does that come from the same picture? Yukiko sees her role in the lab like that of an old wise woman in a tribe, a kind of ancient memory that still remembers their conversation with former lab members – stimulating creativity by bridging projects and generations of researchers.
For more information on Night Science, visit https://www.biomedcentral.com/collections/night-science .

37 | Stephen Wolfram is the Worldly Scientist Jun 19, 2023

Show notes

Can you think of another big company CEO that does basic science? Stephen Wolfram is the CEO of Wolfram Research – the company that developed Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha – but most fundamentally he has a deep commitment to figuring out the nature of reality. Stephen wrote the landmark ‘A new kind of science’ in 2002 and in his current ‘physics project’, Steven is trying to show that the universe is at its core computation, and that its fundamental laws arise from simple computational programs. We talked with Stephen about how he drills down to get the simplest possible explanations to tackle the foundations of scientific fields. He also told us how he makes progress by coming in with new tools to the old problems, with his own brand of scientific creativity.
For more information on Night Science, visit https://www.biomedcentral.com/collections/night-science .

36 | Laurence Hurst and the slime mold model of discovery Jun 05, 2023

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Laurence Hurst is a professor of Evolutionary Genetics and the founding Director of the Milner Centre for Evolution at The University of Bath. Martin actually learned biology from Laurence as a postdoc, and he still likes to quote Laurence’s favorite question after the departmental seminars: “Why is this interesting?” In this episode, Laurence explains his Slime Mold Model of the scientific process, advises us to follow the data, and tells us that much of his research springs from him being a magpie for funny little observations that don’t fit into the current scientific worldview.

For more information on Night Science, visit https://www.biomedcentral.com/collections/night-science .

35 | Edith Heard and the feeling for the system May 22, 2023

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Edith Heard is a Professor at the Collège de France and the Director General of Europe’s “CERN for biologists”, the European Molecular Biology Lab (EMBL). In this episode, Edith explains how she gets ideas when she’s out of her comfort zone and being challenged, and how in her youth she would go to the piano whenever her brain needed time to solve a hard math problem. She emphasizes how much she profited from the “naive optimism” in science in the US – compared to the much more rigid, historical European approach. She discusses with us the importance of deep knowledge about your research subject, paired with the humbleness of feeling you don’t know enough. And then she tells us how she tucks away questions in a drawer until methods become available to answer them.

For more information on Night Science, visit https://www.biomedcentral.com/collections/night-science .

34 | Ewan Birney and the battle scars of discovery May 08, 2023

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Ewan Birney is the deputy director general of the European Molecular Biology Lab (EMBL) and co-director of the European Bioinformatics Institute. In his research, Ewan combines his training in biochemistry with computer science, which made him one of the heroes of the human genome project. In this episode, he describes that an “emotional” understanding of science is often enough to have valuable discussions with experts in different fields, a concept that forms the basis of his diamonds-and-whiskers model of successful scientific teams. Ewan also explains how for him, problems have personalities, and why thinking about science while driving is a bad idea. And he discusses with us how “humans are a complicated species” can be all the scientific hypothesis you need for a grant application, and how Mendel – but not Darwin! – was an early data scientist.
For more information on Night Science, visit https://www.biomedcentral.com/collections/night-science .

33 | Paola Arlotta and science as a walk in the dark woods Apr 24, 2023

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Paola Arlotta is a developmental neurobiologist and a professor at Harvard. She studies how the most complex organ in the human body (in the world? in the universe maybe?) comes to be: the brain (!). How does it develop from just a bunch of cells? Paola is also the Chair of her Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, where she takes particular care about the nurturing of the next generation of scientists in her field. In this episode, Paola describes the crucial role that happiness and passion play for her in doing research. But science for Paola is also a walk in the dark woods, requiring the courage to tackle seemingly quirky questions that get at the heart of the most fundamental biology. We also discussed the role of the mentor in helping to develop the brain for creativity, much the way an infant’s brain develops to understand the world around it.

For more information on Night Science, visit https://www.biomedcentral.com/collections/night-science .

32 | Marty Martin and Art Woods on science podcasting Apr 10, 2023

Show notes

In this special, we talk about podcasting with the two hosts of the Big Biology Podcast (https://www.bigbiology.org), Marty Martin – professor of disease ecology at the University of South Florida – and Art Woods – professor of physiological ecology at the University of Montana. We had a great time discussing our respective podcast experiences, trading tips and reflecting on our passion for science communication and the ways that it has impacted our own research. In their podcast, Marty and Art tell the stories of scientists tackling some of the biggest unanswered questions in biology. While both of our podcasts focus on the people doing science, Big Biology discusses the results, while Night Science explores the creative process of science.

For more information on Night Science, visit https://www.biomedcentral.com/collections/night-science .

31 | Alfred Russel Wallace and night science by candlelight Apr 01, 2023

Show notes

What was the creative process of Alfred Russel Wallace? In this séance, we channel the legendary self-taught evolutionary biologist, founder of the field of biogeography, and co-discoverer of natural selection. Mr. Wallace (as he insists to be called) told us how he did night science by candlelight during long and lonely nights on his travels in the tropics, and how he prefers to ponder the big questions. He sees himself as an early data scientist, identifying patterns in data – in particular in the study of beetles, with both him and Darwin afflicted by beetlemania. He feels that he has an advantage over Darwin because of his less fancy and less structured education: while Mr. Darwin was force-fed the then-current world view, Mr. Wallace was free to read the books that excited him.
This episode could not have been recorded without Mr. Wallace speaking through the voice of a medium who knows his life and works in exquisite detail: Dr. Andrew Berry, lecturer for evolutionary biology at Harvard.
For more information on Night Science, visit https://www.biomedcentral.com/collections/night-science .

30 | Zak Kohane and the abstraction of data Mar 20, 2023

Show notes

Isaac (Zak) Kohane is the Chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School. In this episode, Zak talks with us about how medicine, at its core, is information processing. But in medical data science, one has to understand and to model the dynamics of two orthogonal systems: the patient’s physiology and the dynamics of the healthcare system, in particular the integrating intelligence of doctors who decide about a patient’s path through that system. Zak also tells us how his creative process is an engineering process, how important the right abstraction of the data is, and how reading science fiction gives him the courage to think beyond the technology that is currently feasible.

For more information on Night Science, visit https://www.biomedcentral.com/collections/night-science .

29 | Jim Collins and the technology-free Friday Mar 06, 2023

Show notes

Jim Collins is Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT. In this episode, he talks with us about his radical switch of fields in the early 2000’s, when he essentially founded the field of synthetic biology. Jim’s creative process includes ‘storing content’ about a particular problem; committing a portion of each day to reflect on it, even if this might often feel like wasting time; and then bouncing ideas around in open discussions with colleagues. Jim stresses the need for being disciplined in one's night science improvisations, anchoring oneself with the constraints provided by nature. He highlights the power of coming into a new field from a position of strength, where you introduce methodologies that you have expertise in.

For more information on Night Science, visit https://www.biomedcentral.com/collections/night-science .

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